Whatever is, is right, if only men are steadily bent to make it so, by
comprehending and fulfilling its design.
May not I have an office, too, in my hospitality and ready sympathy? If
I sometimes entertain guests who cannot pay with gold coin, with "fair
rose nobles," that is better than to lose the chance of entertaining
angels unawares.
You, my three friends, are held in heart-honor, by me. You, especially,
Good-Sense, because where you do not go yourself, you do not object to
another's going, if he will. You are really liberal. You, Old Church,
are of use, by keeping unforgot the effigies of old religion, and
reviving the tone of pure Spenserian sentiment, which this time is apt
to stifle in its childish haste. But you are very faulty in censuring
and wishing to limit others by your own standard. You, Self-Poise, fill
a priestly office. Could but a larger intelligence of the vocations of
others, and a tender sympathy with their individual natures be added,
had you more of love, or more of apprehensive genius, (for either would
give you the needed expansion and delicacy) you would command my entire
reverence. As it is, I must at times deny and oppose you, and so must
others, for you tend, by your influence, to exclude us from our full,
free life. We must be content when you censure, and rejoiced when you
approve; always admonished to good by your whole being, and sometimes by
your judgment. And so I pass on to interest myself and others in the
memoir of the Scherin von Prevorst.
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